AG blocks petition to repeal stem-cell law

Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly yesterday stopped a proposed initiative petition aimed at repealing the state's new embryonic stem-cell research law, citing a provision that allows medical workers to opt out of the research for religious reasons.

Reilly said that the state Constitution, as well as a series of high court rulings, stated that any law that relates distinctively to religion cannot go before the voters. The new law encourages embryonic stem-cell research in Massachusetts, but exempts medical staff with ''sincerely-held religious practices or beliefs" from the work.

The attorney general's action, part of a required review of proposed ballot initiatives, halts the petition drive unless backers can persuade a court to overturn the decision. The backer of the initiative, Catholic activist Larry Cirignano, said he is considering an appeal of the decision.

It is the first time since 1999 Reilly has rejected a proposed ballot question based on religion, when he determined that an initiative aimed at allowing public funding of private, religious schools did not pass muster. Reilly has, however, turned away more than a dozen other proposed questions on constitutional grounds.

Reilly, who is seeking the 2006 Democratic nomination for governor, faced criticism from social conservatives yesterday for his legal reasoning.

''He's drawing a very fine line; why not let the guy have a chance?" said Representative Philip Travis, a Rehoboth Democrat and a leading critic of the stem-cell law. ''When it comes to Tom Reilly, he's been consistently wrong in most of his calls, and this is another one. He misinterpreted the meaning."

State Senator Bruce E. Tarr, a Republican of Gloucester who strongly supported the law, said he is pleased that the effort to repeal the new stem-cell legislation is on hold. But Tarr, a lawyer, said he has trouble seeing the legislation as religious in nature.

''It's an interesting application," Tarr said of Reilly's interpretation of the constitution. ''I want to be careful. I'm not so sure there's a precedent. I think you have to go into the second layer of this law to find religion."

In a letter to Secretary of State William Galvin, Reilly cited the 1990 case, Collins v. Secretary of the Commonwealth, which established a three-tiered test for determining whether a law can be shielded from ballot-box repeals based on religious grounds. He concluded that the new stem-cell law passes each tier.

''The court concluded that even if a law's main purpose was unrelated to religion and the law had only incidental effect on religious matters, that incidental effect nevertheless resulted in the law being excluded from the referendum process," Reilly wrote.

In a similar ruling in 1989, then-Attorney General James Shannon blocked a proposed referendum sought by opponents of a gay-rights statute. Shannon said the statute could not be subject to referendum because of language that exempted religious institutions from it and other provisions of the antidiscrimination law.

In 1999, Reilly rejected an initiative petition that sought to undo the state constitution's prohibition on the public funding of parochial schools -- what was then known as the Anti-Aid Amendment. Similar versions of the petition had been turned away by Reilly's predecessor, Scott Harshbarger.

The new stem-cell law, which passed overwhelmingly in the Legislature earlier this year and overcame a gubernatorial veto, was intended to clarify ambiguous statutes to allow scientists to research human embryos without having to fear a legal backlash. It includes two provisions that exempt doctors, nurses, or other medical staff with ''sincerely-held religious practices or beliefs" from being required by their employers to handle human embryos, placental tissue, or umbilical cord blood donated for science.

Cirignano, chief backer of the ballot initiative, strongly disagreed with Reilly's determination that the law was religious in nature and said he is considering appealing the decision. Typically, groups such as Cirignano's can appeal decisions by an attorney general to a single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court.

''If you're the advocate for the embryos, they're on death row, and we have nothing to do but follow the appeals process," Cirignano said. ''I've got to find the people who want to do that."

The stem-cell bill passed in May. To repeal the stem-cell law, Cirignano would have had to collect 32,913 signatures within 90 days of passage, giving him a deadline of the end of August.

He signaled his intention to launch the petition drive last month by taking out papers with Galvin's office, but state law also requires him to receive the wording of the petition from the attorney general's office. He has yet to collect any signatures.

Cirignano conceded that his quest to overturn the stem-cell law now faces very long odds.

''Even if a judge orders it, I need to know how long it would take the [attorney general's office] to write a summary of the law," Cirignano said. ''I need to know if this is even feasible."

The embryonic stem-cell issue, a hot topic on Beacon Hill and Capitol Hill alike, caught fire in Massachusetts earlier this year when Governor Mitt Romney said he could not support Democrat-backed legislation on the issue because it allowed scientists to use a form of cloning in their research. He vetoed the measure, but the House and Senate overwhelmingly overrode the veto.

During the heat of debate, Reilly accused Romney of taking up the issue to score points with Republican presidential primary voters.

Reilly is facing a primary fight for governor next year with Deval Patrick, a former assistant US attorney general who has support in the left-leaning core of the party. In a written response to Reilly's office, Cirignano decried the attorney general's notion that the stem cell-bill is a religious issue.

''Just because we say 'thou shall not kill embryos', it is not a religious issue," Cirignano wrote. ''It is a human rights issue, and debates about human rights are secular in nature."